Autumn
by lokogato-sama
Summary: Someone makes a visit. Ren is Nerdy. Yoh’s a Bad Packer. They’re not in love. Part one of four of 'Seasons.' [YohRen]


Loko: We love Ren too much for our own good.

Summary: Someone makes a visit. Ren is Nerdy. Yoh's a Bad Packer. They're not in love. YohRen

Disclaimer: Yoh owns Ren. We mean, Takei Hiroyuki-sama owns both. Of course that's what we meant. We own Nerdy!Ren, though.

--

Seasons  
(of Autumn)

--

They're staying the night, or what's left of it anyway. His mother put them in the guest rooms on the third floor, so after he'd said goodnight to his sister, finished training, and taken a shower, he went to Yoh's room.

Yoh is sitting on the windowsill, awake as if waiting even though the moon is already high in the night through the open window. The familiar white robe – the only thing besides Amidamaru and associated paraphernalia, a toothbrush, and a passport that Yoh'd thought to bring – hangs loosely and shifts slightly in the breeze. He's read somewhere that a man's sin can bring him to life.

He leans against the doorframe. Yoh stands and looks at him, no smile.

"I thought you might have died." It's much less melodramatic and much more tender than he'd expected, strangely painful. It's a bizarre tone of voice. It throws him off guard. For a moment he doesn't know what to say and is annoyed.

"What happened to 'The boat will straighten by the time it reaches the bridge'?" He feels like it should mean something, that he's said that twice today.

"It did." Yoh moves closer. "But you had me worried for a while."

"You don't worry." Everyone knows that. Yoh takes another step toward him, and suddenly he remembers reading that life is very dangerous. He feels as if he understands now.

"You break the rules." It sounds like a corny movie dialogue. Yoh makes it feel too genuine for comfort. He's grateful for the draft from the window and the door he's left open.

"Look who's talking." He's beaten everyone and his father but not Yoh. Yoh finally smiles and it's almost difficult not to smile back, even after Yoh saved him twice today. One is alone; three is a lucky number; four is not. No one says anything about two. There are two of them, Yoh and him. He's irritated because he doesn't know what to make of it, this number two.

Yoh's close enough to touch him. Yoh's skin is oddly smooth, flesh soft despite the muscle.

Yoh's close enough to smell his shampoo. Yoh's hair is strange and not-quite-silky.

Yoh's close enough to kiss him. Yoh's lips – he doesn't know anything about Yoh's lips. They intrigue him.

He regrets getting fully dressed to come here. Yoh's room is too warm. He must talk to his mother about that. Yoh is still smiling, so he says goodnight.

Yoh's at the door first and shuts it carefully. He remembers again that life is very dangerous. Yoh's looking at him, waiting.

"Why did you come?" He finally obliges.

"I needed you to be alive." Nothing difficult and horribly ambiguous. He doesn't hit Yoh the way he wants to. Instead he remembers something he read: kiss is when one person puts their face up and the other puts their face down and they touch. Remembers reading, why do people do that with their two faces?

Asks, "Why?"

Yoh shrugs _I don't know_. Yoh's close enough to count his eyelashes. Yoh has thick, short eyelashes. Yoh never makes sense. Yoh's face is very close. His clothes are too heavy, he realizes.

And then Yoh's kissing him and that's why. Yoh tastes like toothpaste and spit and it's so sweet it hurts.

It should be strange that his heavy laced-up clothes slide off as easily as Yoh's robe, but he's fifteen and lonely and never been hugged, let alone kissed like this, like Yoh needs this more than oxygen, and he can't be bothered to notice. He's never kissed back like he's abruptly remembered how to be alive.

They might have locked the door but he can't remember. All of Yoh is soft and warm. He's taut and unyielding and needs another bath now.

Yoh's lips are rough and chapped and desperate.

He likes it.

Yoh says against his temple, "There were a lot of reasons."

He mutters into Yoh's throat, "I never asked to be saved."

"I did." He's lost to Asakura Yoh again.

He knows enough to leave by morning. He underestimates Yoh again, though. Yoh bursts into his room and kisses him awake and disappears to breakfast. Bason nearly has heart failure from shock, but it's okay, he's already dead and won't tell a soul, literally.

He catches Yoh in a hallway before they leave and takes revenge by teaching Yoh about intensity.

They know there's no time. There's the Shaman Fight and Yoh has Anna and he has the Tao. Anyway, it's not like they're in love or something.

Still, he hopes it can last for a little forever. They need to be alive.

He's read somewhere that suffering is one very long moment, so he keeps hoping.

-owari-

words: 789  
paragraphs: 31  
sentences: 84

-

Ren's definitely Nerdy Chinese enough to be reading Thomas Mann (referenced Death in Venice), Virginia Woolf (referenced Mrs. Dalloway), James Joyce (referenced Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), and Oscar Wilde (referenced De Profundis). (All references are mentioned in the order in which they appear.) I mean, just look at those clothes he wears the first time Yoh meets him in Tokyo. Short-shorts equal classic European literature, of _course_. (By the way, all are highly recommended reading.)

I don't know if I'm going to add more to this. If I get mauled by inspiration, I suspect I will. Please wish me luck. All I've got so far are pieces of scenes and recurring phrases. u.u;;

Reviewing would result in shiny-eyed gratitude and free fic requests for anyone who cares enough to make one. :readies Shiny-Eyed Gratitude:

lokogato enterprises, inc.  
19 August 2005  
7:57 PM


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